The Hong Kong trial of Jimmy Lai has again been delayed, this time by the court’s recognition of the evident poor health of the former media mogul who was also one of the most prominent leaders of Hongkongers’ resistance to the Chinese Communist Party (AFP, August 15, 2025).
The 77-year-old British citizen and founder of the now-shuttered tabloid Apple Daily has been behind bars in Hong Kong since 2020, charged with foreign collusion.
Closing arguments in the long-running trial were originally expected to begin Thursday, but all court sessions were suspended by heavy rain.
As court resumed Friday, defence lawyer Robert Pang said Lai was experiencing heart “palpitations” and felt like he was “collapsing”.
Lai’s lawyers have requested he be excused from the closing arguments, as he is not required to speak.
“Coming to court fatigues him,” Pang said.
Judge Esther Toh said prison-arranged medical staff had detected “no abnormality” with Lai’s heart but would supply a wearable monitor and medication.
It’s nice of the court, which is doing the Party’s bidding, to express concern about the effects of the persecution of Lai to the extent of being willing to supply a monitor and medication even though it discounts Lai’s own report of his physical condition. (Lai’s heartbeat wasn’t askew at the exact moment the court-appointed doctors checked, if the court’s report is accurate.) And even though the judges will, it seems, continue to require that he be physically present in the courtroom. This is the same court that dispenses “severe rebukes” when Lai refers to himself as a political prisoner.
U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged to do all he can to save Jimmy Lai (shown above, left)—though no longer giving the impression that doing so will be snap, as Trump at least once suggested during the recent presidential campaign. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (shown above, right) has claimed that he has brought up Lai’s case during talks with the PRC dictator, Xi Jinping. I doubt that either Starmer or his smarmy foreign secretary, David Lammy, has actually pressed any point about Lai during their diplomacy. It’s possible.
If getting Lai out of a Hong Kong prison before he dies were a higher priority with the Western leaders, they would sound less like they were being dutiful in acknowledging Lai’s plight and more like they were doing something about it. But the unjust imprisonment of political prisoner Jimmy Lai doesn’t seem to be a sticking point in trade talks, for instance.
Also see:
Acton Institute: Video: The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai’s Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom
